


Cold

by FruHallbera



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, Tumblr Prompt, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 12:04:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16764799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FruHallbera/pseuds/FruHallbera
Summary: Hux faces an unexpected danger when his shuttle crash lands into snow and ice. Ren may be irritating at best and a whirlwind of destruction at worst, but he's not entirely without some redeeming features.Tumblr prompt: "It's too cold to do anything."





	Cold

“It’s too cold to do anything. Yet here we are, and you are being absolutely useless and I must do everything myself. As usual.”

The pilot didn’t answer. Hux didn’t blame him; being dead was the only excuse for not acknowledging a superior officer he was willing to accept. Hux unbuckled the man’s harness and let him fall from his seat to the floor. The shuttle lay slightly tilted to one side, half-buried in a bank of snow. With some difficulty Hux maneuvered himself on the pilot’s seat and tried to breathe life back into the shuttle’s systems. Nothing. “Right. I suppose there is a reason why you were the pilot and I’m a general.”

Hux blew on his fingers to keep them warm, then buried his hands under his arms and shivered. Their shuttle had suffered a major malfunction of flight controls not long after taking off, thankfully before breaching atmo. There were no other passengers on board besides Hux. Almost on a whim he had decided to conduct a quick inspection of the gold mines of the planet they were orbiting while waiting orders from the Supreme Leader. The inspection had provided the distraction he needed – it was either that or beating Ren to death with his own helmet. It had become obvious to Hux that the only purpose Ren served in life was to provide as much irritation and annoyance to his immediate surroundings as he could.

Hux had been looking forward to returning to his ship and to the bottle of whiskey waiting for him in his quarters. He was accustomed to the permanent chill of space travel, but the weather on the northern hemisphere of this stars-forsaken planet was _raw_. If only the gold mines could have been built to the tropical equator - Hux could have been happy to crash land there. He was due some shore leave, but unable to take it what with having a war to wage and a Ren to manage. Hux had been freezing ever since setting foot on the surface, and now his toes were getting painful and his fingers numb. The miners had been eager to set Hux on his way, too, looking at their watches when they thought Hux wasn’t looking and getting more skittish as the hours went by. Hux assumed they had some equivalent of whiskey to look forward to and didn’t linger with goodbyes. All was well, as far as Hux understood anything about mining, so he had boarded his shuttle and braced for the inevitable collision with Ren.

Well. His absence would be soon noticed, even if the pilot hadn’t sent a distress sign. The _Finalizer_ was on orbit and help would arrive soonish. All Hux had to do was to keep warm. He had his greatcoat, but woefully inadequate boots and gloves, and his hat only covered the top of his head. The shuttle was still somewhat warm but without power it wouldn’t last long. Out of habit Hux checked his blaster and as an afterthought liberated the pilot’s corpse of his sidearm. It was unlikely that there’d be anything to threaten him beyond the weather, but he felt better armed. He thought of the blankets in the tiny sleeping quarters and went to gather as many as he could find and piled them on one cot. If it came to spending a night he’d be warm enough there.

Without anything else to do, he ambled back to the cockpit to take a look outside. The sun was already setting, the horizon blazed with crimson and blue and then the light was suddenly gone. Hux blinked at the darkness before his eyes adjusted to the silvery light of the two moons rising just above the horizon. Hux sighed and relaxed on the pilot’s chair, then frowned and leaned forwards, rising to lean over the console for a better view. Was there something moving on the snow?

There was. The surface rippled like water, small shadows moving in the moonlight, moving towards the shuttle. Then the movement stopped, so suddenly that Hux tried to take a step back but ended up sitting heavily on the seat when it hit the backs of his knees. It could have been the wind moving the loose snow. It could have been a trick of light. And the faint noise, like thousand tiny fingers tapping on the hull could have been the wind picking up some snow and debris and throwing them against the shuttle.

It could have been a thousand things, easily explained, had it not been for the dead pilot scrambling on his feet, clumsily, as if being moved by something not accustomed to the workings of a human body. Hux drew in a sharp breath, then on pure instinct rose up, grabbed his blaster and shot the pilot between his eyes. The man staggered backwards but did not fall nor stop moving. Hux nearly leaped to the cockpit door, ran to the other side and slammed his fist on the control panel to seal the room. He could hear the shuffling steps of the dead man, and fingernails scraping against the door. Hux hoped that whatever had taken over the corpse of his pilot couldn’t operate the door release.

He was now faced with a new dilemma. Indoors he’d be sheltered from the elements but ultimately trapped if the pilot managed to get out of the cockpit. Outside would mean dropping temperature and no shelter and since Hux didn’t know what had woken the dead he had no idea if he’d be better off inside the shuttle or out. He settled for indoors, until he knew more the most clear and present danger was presented by the weather. Mind on overdrive he rummaged for ration bars, folded a blanket sash-like over his shoulder, ran his hand over the sleeve that hid his blade. The nervous air in the gold mine suddenly made a lot of sense.

The shuffling and scraping in the cockpit ceased for a moment, and was replaced with something hitting the door, hard. Hux backed away until he hit the bulkhead, took hold of both blasters and trained them towards the cockpit door. The pilot tried to hit his way out a couple of more times, then went quiet. That didn’t ease Hux’s mind at all. He crept slowly forwards, still ready to fire at the first sign of the door failing.

The silence continued in the cockpit, but the pattering sound returned suddenly. Hux nearly fired his blaster but managed to stop before risking damage to the hull or himself. He cursed in every language he knew and spun around, trying to find the source of the noise. It seemed to be everywhere at once, surrounding the shuttle and trying to find a way inside.

Then the sound stopped.

And began, this time clearly coming from the direction of the cockpit. The entity was now hammering against the window and it didn’t take long for the pilot to start hitting it from the inside. “Shit,” Hux muttered when the impossible happened and the sound of the transparisteel cracking echoed in the passenger bay. “Shit,” he said again, with more conviction, when the entire shuttle groaned and tilted further into the snowbank as the attack intensified.

Hux weighed his options. If the entirety of the attacker was now focused in getting in through the window he might be better off outside, but he had no idea what he was up against. The decision was made easy for him when the transparisteel gave out and the pounding ceased only to start anew against the cockpit door. It would only be a matter of time when the door release was activated, if only by accident. He crept across the passenger bay, hoping that the shuttle wasn’t so deep in the snow the ramp wouldn’t open and, blaster at the ready, pushed the release button.

Thankfully the only thing that the wind blew in was snow. Hux remained pressed against the wall for a moment, then moved outside as silently as he could. The cold air hit stung his face and constricted his lungs, making his eyes water and breath hitch. He cursed his black uniform which would show against the snow even in the nighttime, the moons were horribly bright, and the silver-white light reflected from the powdery surface in a way which would have been very beautiful in different circumstances.

The shuttle was tilted in a way which, if Hux was lucky, would make it possible to scramble to the relative shelter of the crook of the wing. He’d be hidden against the black durasteel, and the wing and the hull would offer some protection provided the unknown hostile would have a corporeal body and wouldn’t be able to fly and several hundred other things Hux could imagine but chose to ignore for the moment. He took a step away from the ramp and sunk knee-deep into the snow. He gasped in surprise and pain as his other leg bent painfully underneath him. On instinct he tried to push himself up but managed only to get his gloves full of snow when his hands, still holding the blasters, failed to gain any purchase on the loose snow.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Hux regretted his outburst as soon a it left his lips. By the sound of it, the pilot and what had woken him hadn’t managed to get through the door but Hux didn’t want to attract any attention to his whereabouts. He set the blasters carefully on the ramp, rubbed his wrists on his greatcoat to remove the last remains of snow and cast about for means to get himself away from the open doorway and on top of the shuttle.

Still cursing, although very quietly, Hux finally pocketed the blasters, leaned backwards ignoring the complaints of his bent knee and pulled his other foot free from the snowbank. He got up on all fours and forgoing all dignity crawled forwards until he could get a hold of the long barrel of the cannon protruding from the base of the wing. Hoisting one leg over it he pushed on until he reached the blissfully solid durasteel surface. By now he was shivering violently. The tears forced from his eyes by the bitterly cold wind froze on his eyelashes and glued them together. He rubbed them dry, shook out the blanket and threw it over his head and shoulders, hoping against hope that it would be enough to warm him up.

A screech of tortured metal from inside the shuttle told him that the cockpit door had failed. Hux crouched down, taking up a position huddled against the comforting mass of the wing. It took only a second or two before _something_ poured out of the shuttle, a shimmering, pulsing something, made from a million tiny particles but moving as one. It – _they_ – dove under the snow sending it spiraling upwards and falling back to the ground, shining in the bright moonlight.

For a brief moment all was still. Then, almost at the same time, the pilot lurched from the shuttle, and the snow seemed to boil as – Hux hissed in near panic and tried to press himself inside the wing – people rose from under the snow. Some of them were wearing the miner’s overalls, some the remains of clothes Hux couldn’t identify, but all of them were undeniably dead. Hux took a blaster in each numb hand, forcibly curling his index fingers around the triggers. He centered himself, focused on the mission at hand. He was a soldier, he had a mission and his enemies were closing in. Dead or alive, it didn’t matter to him. Help was bound to be on its way already, he should have begun his bridge duty by now. All he’d have to do was to keep the creatures at a distance until his troopers arrived.

The miner’s skittish behavior really made perfect sense now.

The walking dead milled about without direction, some venturing inside the shuttle and some circling it from the outside. They did not seem to have any trouble in walking on the snow without sinking into it. _Unfair_ , thought Hux as he shifted to keep the closest ones in his sights. They’d know where he was the moment he fired his blasters, so he kept quiet, willing his body to stop shivering from the cold. Headshots wouldn’t stop the creatures, so he shifted his aim to their knees. They moved slowly, at least for now, so he had a chance of stopping at least a few of them before the sheer number of the enemy got overwhelming.

It was his former pilot, the traitor, who first began to sniff the air and then clamber up on to the shuttle. Hux buried his nose and mouth underneath the blanket, hoping to prevent his breath from giving away his position. He held the blasters steady, waiting for the last possible moment to open fire. The pilot hauled himself on to the wing, lurched in a circle for a while and stopped, swaying on his feet. His comrades followed, awkwardly climbing up, treading on each other’s fingers and feet and faces but never stopping. Soon there were half a dozen moving corpses bumping into each other and accidentally pushing a couple of their mates off the edge and onto the ground.

Hux stamped his nausea down. The dead were slowly getting closer and they were bound to notice him any time now – and just as soon as he had thought of it one of them, a man with yellowish, waxy skin and tattered remains of a flight suit of sorts stopped his ambling to blink at him. Then, as if some silent communication had passed between them, the corpses all turned and began to move with a purpose. Hux dropped the one in a flight suit first, shooting him right through his kneecaps. He fell down, but after a moment’s flailing resumed his advancing, crawling onwards.

Hux dropped the second, and the third. He rose from his couch and began to move backwards, taking one careful step after another. He was well aware that he could not ultimately win this fight without backup, but he’d be damned if he didn’t put up one hell of a fight. He was slowing his attackers down, but the freezing weather was slowing him down, too, the adrenaline surging though his veins would help only so far. Shot after shot, step after step, Hux saw his demise drawing closer.

He felt it before he heard the beautiful roar of the TIE-fighter engine. A familiar touch skimming the surface of his mind, something that would usually have him snap and snarl at the resident Knight of Ren but what he now welcomed like a long-lost friend. _Here_ , he thought, _I’m here, come and get me_. Then the Silencer became visible, and Ren’s presence left his mind apparently to fixate on whatever it was that had woken the dead because as suddenly as they had appeared they now turned to shuffle and crawl away from Hux and towards where the fighter seemed to be touching down. Hux cursed at Ren’s carelessness, but was forced to take at least some of his more creative expletives back because when the walking corpses had left Hux’s shuttle and gotten some steps away from it, the Silencer took off, circled the scene once, and Ren vaporized a good portion of the enemy with the cannons.

Hux couldn’t help it. He punched the air, shouting “Hell yes!” He’d deny it, of course, but right now it felt just the ting to do. He let himself slide until he reached the edge of the wing and resumed his shooting. This time Ren landed for real, and to Hux it seemed his lightsaber was ignited before he got out of the cockpit. Hux nearly forgot the danger he was in and lowered his blasters at the sight of Ren’s graceful yet brutally efficient way of fighting. He’d seen him train, on occasion, and knew from the reports how deadly the Knight could be, but this was the first time Hux had seen him in action. It was - exhilarating. Hux watched mesmerized as Ren dealt with the situation. The attacking dead had to be literally chopped into pieces to stop them but to Hux it looked like Ren didn’t even break a sweat.

The last of the enemies fell, finally, and Ren switched off his saber. He straightened from his battle stance and shook his hair to remove the snow the fight had flown into it. “Hux!”

“Here! Over here!” Hux tried to shout but the cold was now really getting into him and his voice came out thin and weak. He could barely feel his fingers and toes and the rest of his body was shaking badly. Ren was now running to him, the utter bastard keeping himself easily from not sinking into the snow, and once he got to Hux held out his hands.

“Jump,” he said. Hux leveled a glare at him, but holstered his own blaster and pocketed the other, sat down to dangle his legs over the edge and carefully let himself drop to the ground. Ren caught him before he sank into the snow and inexplicably wrapped him in tight embrace.

“I felt the danger you were in, Hux. You don’t get to die. I won’t let you.”

“What?” Not his most eloquent moment, but the only thing that came to Hux’s mind. And, because it was a second nature to him by now, argued: “It’s really not up to you to decide, Ren.”

Ren pulled back at that, gave Hux a strange, intense look and would have hoisted him over his shoulder had Hux not put up a serious fight. They reached a compromise where Ren let Hux walk to the Silencer and Hux allowed Ren’s hand at the small of his back. Initially he frowned at the contact but to his surprise found himself relaxing to it. Ren’s was a warm, large presence, and suddenly Hux felt safe by his side. And _that_ made him frown again, he most certainly wasn’t dependent on anybody else for his well-being. Still, he was shivering with cold so pressing closer to the human-shaped furnace by his side was only natural. This had been a singularly strange day, and Hux suspected the harrowing experience was not yet over.

The Silencer’s cockpit was cramped but blessedly warm. Hux curled his toes in his boots, grimacing at the pain and buried his hands under his arms. He couldn’t remember how being warm felt like. Ren went through the check-ups and the fighter took off smoothly, leaving a cloud of swirling snow behind it. Hux relished leaving the planet behind, and the sight of the Silencer’s guns reducing the stricken shuttle into a ball of flame made a satisfied smile spread across his face. Then, with a sigh, he reached for the comm and made contact with the _Finalizer’s_ bridge. What had attacked him was something completely unknown. He couldn’t take any risks. He ordered himself to be placed in isolation in case he was in any way contaminated.

“You’re not.” Ren said without looking at Hux. “It can’t feed off the living. That’s why they were trying to kill you.”

“How do you know that?”

“It had a mind, of a sort. A hive-mind, kind of, but enough of a consciousness that I could read it. You’re free of it, trust me.”

Hux was tempted but couldn’t bring himself to wilfully risk his ship and his crew, and he told this to Ren. The Knight shrugged, then turned to Hux and grinned.

“You know, I was down there too. I should be locked away with you.”

And that was how, two cycles later, Hux found himself tucked under a heavy blanket, wrapping his arms and legs around a sleepy Ren, after a suspiciously glassy-eyed medic had declared in a monotonous voice that it was common procedure in cases like this to isolate the patients in the same room.

And despite the constantly beeping datapad, and the intrusive tests Ren insisted were unnecessary, Hux felt – content. And absolutely, unbelievably, warm. 


End file.
